Spending time abroad enriches research and expands horizons
Experiencing a different academic culture can open up new perspectives on research and on life. This was the experience of three ETH doctoral students who were awarded an ETH Zurich Doc.Mobility Fellowship for a six months stay abroad. ETH doctoral students may apply again by 1 September 2022.
Hawaii, Vienna, Oxford, Cambridge – all four places are home to internationally renowned universities and research institutions. Ronja Sczepanski, Stefano van Gogh and Francesco Fournier Facio are three ETH doctoral students who have already or will soon have the opportunity to become acquainted with the research communities at one of these institutions. All three of them were awarded a scholarship from ETH Zurich to fund their six months stays abroad. The ETH Zurich Doc.Mobility Fellowship enables ETH doctoral students to complete a portion of their research at a university abroad.
Ronja Sczepanski is a doctoral student working in ETH’s European Politics research group (D-GESS). She is studying how and when people change their political identities, especially national and European identities. She stayed at the University of Oxford at Nuffield College. Oxford’s organisational structure and culture are very different from ETH’s: “That has benefited me both academically and personally.” She found that compared to ETH, where the political science divisions are rather small, Oxford has a much greater concentration of political scientists and a different research culture. She also said that the discussions with well-respected experts were very stimulating for her dissertation.
Expanding skills – on a big or small scale
Stefano van Gogh shares this experience. He is an engineering sciences researcher (D-ITET) who is studying breast cancer detection in the X-ray tomography group led by Marco Stampanoni at ETH and the Paul Scherrer Institute. He spent his time abroad at Cambridge – not surrounded by medical technology specialists but instead by applied mathematics experts. These research communities were also much larger than the ones he has been part of at PSI and ETH. Most notably, he had to familiarise himself with the mathematician’s mindset and way of working. “I not only improved my mathematics skills, but also gained new perspectives on my own research and my life.”
Francesco Fournier-Facio (D-MATH) experiences are different: the mathematics doctoral student is researching group theory and is part of the geometry group led by Alessandra Iozzi. He spent the first part of the fellowship at the University of Vienna in the Faculty of Mathematics, where the geometry group is much smaller than in Zurich. “But I had much deeper conversations because I got to know the people and was able to discuss questions much more intensively.” Because the six months duration of the Doc.Mobility Fellowships can be split in exceptional circumstances, Fournier will now spend the second part of his time abroad in Hawaii. This location came about after the professor he had contacted for his guest stay changed positions.
Finding one’s way in a new setting is part of studying abroad – ultimately, the purpose of the ETH Zurich Doc.Mobility Fellowships is for the doctoral students to improve their academic profile by gaining international work experience and making professional connections.
Doc.Mobility application deadline 1 September
ETH doctoral students who are interested in an ETH Zurich Doc.Mobility Fellowship can submit their applications until 1 September 2022 at 5.00 p.m. (CET). After that, the next submission deadline is 1 March 2023. A prerequisite for applicants is that they are enrolled and employed at ETH Zurich or employed at one of the specified ETH-Domain institutions when they submit their application and during their stay abroad. They can use the scholarship money for carrying out research or learning new methods relating to their doctoral project. The scholarship also includes funds for living expenses.
Further information
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